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From the Technical Director:
New Specification for Principles and Practice of Fire Protection Engineering Exam

By Morgan J. Hurley, P.E., FSFPE | Fire Protection Engineering

Beginning with the October 2012 examination, a new specification will
be in place for the "principles and practice examination" (colloquially
known as the "P.E. Exam") for fire protection engineering. This new
specification is the result of an exhaustive process that is conducted
every six to eight years that ensures that the examination is
representative of the tasks performance by fire protection engineers and
the knowledge necessary to perform those tasks. (For more information
on the process used to develop the specification, see "Setting the
Standard" by Anthony Militello in the 3rd Quarter 2011 issue of Fire Protection Engineering magazine. )

Specifications for P.E. exams identify
the technical areas that are included on the exam and the fraction of
the exam associated with each technical area. Beginning with the
development of the last specification for the fire protection
engineering P.E. exam, the exam specification has increasingly focused
on the science and technology that underpins the practice of fire
protection engineering. Similarly, the types of questions that are
included on the examination have changed to better reflect the science
and technology of fire protection engineering.

A summary of the specification is shown in Table 1.

Overall, the new exam specification is a
modest change from the previous specification, which was approved in
2002 and became effective with the 2004 offering of the exam. Similarly,
the recent changes are not much different when compared to those that
were in place from 1999 – 2003. Water-based fire suppression systems
represented 25% of the exam in1999 and 15% in 2004. Non-water-based fire
suppression systems (now called "special hazard systems") accounted for
12. 5% of the questions on the exam in 1999 and 5% of the questions in
2004.

In the 1999 specification, fire dynamics and human behavior were not
specifically identified (although problems from these areas could have
been included on the exam as part of the specification area for
"research and development of hazard and risk analysis" – which was 12.
5% of the exam.) Beginning with the 2004 exam, fire dynamics questions
were 10% of the exam, and human behavior questions were 5%.

While the subjects covered on the fire
protection engineering P.E. exam have not changed tremendously over the
last 13 years, the types of questions on the exam have changed. Largely
gone are questions that could be answered simply by looking in a code or
standard (although codes and standards might still be sources of
calculation methods or information that would be used as part of a
calculation). Collectively, the changes to the fire protection
engineering P.E. exam during the last 13 years show a steady maturation
of the field of fire protection engineering.